SA Facebook users in alarming decline
Social network Facebook has continued to lose South Africa users in February, according to data from social media monitoring firm, SocialBakers.
The trend started towards the end of 2012, with Michal Wronski, MD of information analysts, Fuseware, citing social media fatigue and boredom.
Facebook has shed 293,000 users in South Africa in the last month alone, or 5.3% – only behind Japan out of the top 50 countries who boast the most Facebook users.
And worse still, as many as 815,040 users have left the site over the past three months – a loss of 14.73%.
South Africa is ranked 32nd in terms of user numbers, with a penetration rate of 11.29% compared to the country’s population and 89.75% in relation to number of Internet users.
The total number of Facebook users in South Africa now stands at 5.534 million, showing growth of approximately 176,960 users in the last six months.
Wronksi supports the accuracy of the data as it pulls directly from the FB API (Application Programming Interface).
The online analyst opined that users were being drawn to other social sites including Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram as they provide a “more direct, real-time and less brand-invasive way of accessing the digital social sphere”.
Facebook South Africa
International
Out of the top 50 ranked countries in terms of Facebook users, only Argentina has accrued new users over the past month, up 0.48% or 97,600 users to 20.403 million. The South American country is ranked 12th on Social Baker’s list.
Japan meanwhile, ranked 17th, has seen as many as 2.03 million users leave Facebook over the past month, or 14.69%, to 13.809 million users.
The US, which tops the list, has remained flat, at 163 million users and a penetration rate of 52.56%, but second placed, Brazil has lost 239,180 users to 66.55 million. India and Indonesia, third and fourth respectively, have also shed users over the past month.
Over the past three months however, Social Baker’s data indicates that the US has lost nearly three million users, or 1.8%, but Brazil gained as much as 3.35 million users or 5.04%. Indonesia dropped 7.99% or 3.76 million users over the three month period.
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